This is more of a series of questions, rather than an opinion piece. JoeUsers are encouraged to share their thoughts and opinions. on July 4th, 1976, I watched the Tall Ships sailing up the Hudson River in New York City. We stood at the edge of Spuyten Duyvel, spit of land that has had historical significance since the city was New Amsterdam and cheered. It was America's Bicentennial. What will America's Tricentennial be like? What are your predictions for the year 2076, a mere 68 year...

Tomorrow, I turn fifty years old. How did that happen? Mickey Mantle, one of my childhood heroes though with feet of clay, said: "If I had known that I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself." Ah, the Mick. It was a good year and overall I am well content with where I find myself, though sometimes puzzled as to how exactly I got here. Born in the Bronx, NY (da Bronx!) I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Born in 1955, I am totally involved with technologies that...

"Report of my death greatly exaggerated." - Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) I am writing this more than twelve hours after the posts reporting the Pope's death began appearing on JoeUser. The problem is that the Pope has NOT died as of this point. This, to my mind, is the Dark Side of not just JoeUser, but of the bloggosphere in general. There is little or no accountability and a general rush to judgment. Let me be at pains to distinguish between articles that are legitimately discussing th...

I come to JoeUser to write, to read, to comment and to learn. I learn most from people that are different from me, that offer ideas and perspectives that I would never have thought of. I don't think that I am unique in this. But civility is a requirement. When things degenerate into "flame wars" or simple meanness, neither side listens or benefits. One of my dear friends is our own BakerStreet. I know BakerStreet from the skinning community and he has always had my respect and admiration....

I have been writing a series of articles on religion and history. The response has been more favorable than I would have imagined. I haven't offended anybody.....yet! Which is good, because, although I am careful, religion is a touchy subject. But I will tell you that I have put a LOT of work into this. Why? Well, I am teaching a 7th Grade class that deals with comparative religion and I think electronic notes are better than handouts. But that is not the reason. I am teaching the class a...

For the past couple of weeks, I have been using MyIE2 as my browser. It really is an add-on to Internet Explorer that allows you to open multiple web pages in the same Window. They show as tabs at the top. Installation is trivial and you will find that all you Favorites have been imported from Internet Explorer. If you have read any of my blogs, you know that I tend to quote a lot of internet sources. Having the pages all available in one Window is less memory intensive and having them ...

I blogged a lot this week. This is the 6th or 7th post for me, a one week personal record. A couple of Humor posts (is there going to be a sub-category of Humor>Bad Jokes just for me?), a couple on world events and some of the usual miscellaneous maunderings. I am thrilled that I could post them all on the same site. I felt good when I wrote them and even better when I read some of the responses. To tell you the truth, I feel loved. WAIT! I mean that in a manly, macho kind of way. For m...